It's not natural: A Sunset Coven Omake - Episode 2 (Part II-a)

It’s (still) not natural!

Another Sunset Coven Omake: E2-P2b

Finally Trice had reached her destination: Rabat.

After Kane had manned up, she demanded him to show where the Nemean lion’s skin was found. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have gone there on her own, but there was something to Kane’s story. Something was going on here that was more than just the death of a cool pet. And while she didn’t want to meddle with the affairs of others, this mystery intrigued her a lot.

To be honest, now that she was following Kane into parts of the Saint Paul’s Catacombs that weren’t even open to the public, she thought it was handy to have him.

‘Aren’t we there yet?’ she asked. There was more comfortable than walking around, bent in two so to not knock your head against the low ceiling you couldn’t even discern in the dark.

‘Yeah, I think it was here,’ he said as shone the flashlight into the floor. ‘As soon word gotten out that his skin was found, some Italian dudes came claiming to research the place and took everything with them.’

‘Was there something else beside the skin?’ Trice asked as she squatted down.

‘His eyeballs.’

‘Eyeballs? They didn’t say that in the news report.’ She looked at the bloodless crime scene and overturned some stones. ‘Was there any blood when you found the skin?’

‘No.’

‘Skinning and eye-gauging spotlessly?’ she asked as she dropped a stone she’d been holding. ‘Damn those skills. By the way, is it normal for the lion to come here? Looks a bit too populated.’

‘Bob? No, he normally stayed Calypso’s place at Gozo. She was her pet and took good care of it, ya know.’

If her skin could turn into another colour, it would to become green of envy. To have a Nemean lion as a pet was so freakin’ cool. ‘Calypso never took it for a walk or something?’

‘Well, of course she did. I mean, Bob isn’t a poodle meant to keep indoors 24/7.’

‘The lion came here without being seen by anybody? Didn’t Calypso notice it when it went missing?’

Kane huffed. ‘Could you like address “Bob” by its name instead of referring it as a “lion” or “it”?’

She smirked as she gotten up. ‘Over my dead body. Now answer me.’

‘No one did and Calypso was out the night he went missing. She only noticed the next night.’

‘How on earth can you not notice that your lion is missing?’

‘She had a bad hangover.’ He paused and since there was no comeback he explained. ‘We went out in St Julians. At Dragonara Casino’s she lost all her money and it depressed her…’

‘Hah? Losing money depressed her?’

‘Fine, she used to be a bad drunkard. I heard that since Odysseus left it was all booze, booze, booze. Well, my pal said that it was worse before she had Bob. But even so, pretty bad.’

‘How did Calypso even get the lion?’

‘Bob? I don’t know, she had it before I came here.’

Trice sulked. This guy was useless when it came to get info about the Nemean lion. Looked like all he cared about was that drunk with a gambling addiction… I bet she had rage issues too. ‘When did Calypso die?’

‘That night she found out Bob was missing. She called me to ask if we could search together and I was going to meet up with her at Mdina…’

‘That’s not far from here, right?’ she asked and checked how much time she had left. ‘Take me there.’

‘Okay,’ he said and made a step towards the exit, then halted. ‘Wait, why should I do that? You’re my prisoner.’

He was so slow it wasn’t even funny. ‘And here I thought we bonded over alcohol,’ she lied.

‘You slashed my friends,’ he accused.

‘Well, did they die?’ she asked.

Kane tilted his head to the side like a dog. ‘ No?’

‘See, I meant no harm.’ She slapped his back. ‘Now let’s go.’

***

Her thoughts bottlenecked in her head. When Kane showed her Mdina yesterday and explained to her what had happened, her gut feeling told her she would soon unravel the mystery of the disappearance of a truckload of Maltese creatures.

But her gut feeling was seemingly wrong.

Frustrated Trice rested her head on the table on which a map of the island filled with her markings had been spread out.

In Mdina Kane explained that he had set a rendez-vous with Calypso on her night of disappearance. When he reached the gates of the city, where they would meet up, she wasn't there. So he waited a few hours before going into the city and ask some kind of well demon whether he had seen her. On which the demon replied that he hadn't. However a person dropped some fabric in his well which he gave to Kane. Kane immediately recognised that the scraps of clothing belonged to Calypso.

When Kane explained to her that the well demon was the only creature in Mdina, Trice's suspicion was that perhaps the murderer was in the vicinity of Mdina and Rabat. The Maltese creatures were religiously following the Treaty who said that they should leave the Noblemen alone so they avoided Mdina where the last two were currently living.

It made of Mdina the perfect city to kill.

But when she asked Kane to give her a map of the country and tell her where they had found indications of other disappearances, she had to conclude that her theory was wrong. The disappearances were not, as she hoped, grouped around the area of Mdina, but grouped in Fgura, Santa Lucija and Kordin.

It was rather odd how disparate the murder scene of Calypso and her pet were in comparison of the rest. It could be that the murderer was exploring larger horizons, but it didn't make any sense. If she were a bloody murderer thirsty for a killing spree she'd go to la Valette where there were a lot of humans and monsters. It wasn't as if it was a subtle killer anyway. Then again the way Calypso and the Lion were killed was so different from the humans and other creatures. From the latter two no traces were left at all, unlike the former ones.

She sighed and eyed the door where she saw a shadow shifting. It had been her third night she had been hanging around at Kane’s hide-out in Birgu. While she didn’t like depending on strangers, Trice did have to admit that it was easier to access to more information this way as Kane could speak some Maltese. However, she was on guard when it came to the old crone. Which was why she hadn’t spent the day here, but found somewhere else to sleep.

Trice lifted her head and connected Fgura, Santa Lucija and Kordin.

Kane walked in with a cooler in hand. ‘I brought food,’ he announced.

Without looking up she pointed at the triangle, ‘What’s there that’s interesting?’

‘Interesting?’ he repeated as he opened the box. ‘You wanna do some tourism? Then you should visit the Tarxien temples.’

‘Anything else?’

‘There’s a church,’ he fished 2 foil packets. ‘Well, there’s also the Hypogeum, but it’s closed. So, you prefer pigs heart or cow’s stomach?’

‘The Hypogeum?’

‘Yeah, some sort of Prehistorical underground. And as I said, it’s closed to the public during the winter so...’

‘So? We broke into that other catacombs in Rabat,’ she countered.

‘That’s different. I know most of St Paul’s catacombs as the back of my hand. But the Hypogeum… It’s kinda hard. I mean, like hard to do more than humans would explore. It’s rather vast and all… You know, there’s been stories of people who disappeared without a trace. I heard that in 1940 a school of 30 children gotten lost in there or something. Anyway, which one you want?’

A big underground where no one has access to? That’d be the perfect place to eat and hide corpses. Maybe she was finally getting closer to the carcass of the Nemean lion. ‘Interesting,’ she said and gotten up. ‘Let’s make a trip there tomorrow night.’

‘What? But I just said we can’t.’

‘Then you’ll have to figure out by tomorrow how we can.’ She picked up her bag and headed to the door.

‘And why should I listen to you? You’re not the boss of me!’

She paused a second at the door and forced herself to flash him a dazzling smile. The kind that worked to get all the girls buy all the alcohol in her bar. It was perhaps not how she should get a guy do things for her, but she ran out of ideas and this whole “we’re happy friends” thing was wearing her down. ‘Drinks will be on me tomorrow night, okay?’ Then disappeared.

Kane remained behind puzzled what all this was about and why his heart just skipped a beat.

***

Trice had gone back to Mdina. Even though it looked like that the Hypogeum was probably going to give an answer for great deal of what was happening on this island, she could not shake off the feeling that something was off with the Silent city.

She walked through the narrow streets until she stopped in front of a house. Above the door there was some kind of emblem with a fish and three pink flowers. The vamp overheard a guide whispering to a couple who were paying her for a late night tour, ‘there are only two nobles living in here. A man and a woman. The property is so huge that they can live there without seeing each other for weeks I guess.’

Trice sized up the house and shrugged. It didn’t look that big to her. After the couple and their guide was gone, she went straight up to the door and rang.

A few minutes later, a small old man in a black suit opened curiously the door. ‘Yes?’

‘Hello, would you sign a  petition for the re-opening of the Hypogeum?’

The man shook his head. Trice shrugged it off at first, then grabbed the handle and smacked the door against the man’s face. As he fell backwards, she slipped in unnoticed.

Before getting adventurous she checked the old man first. He was knocked out, had a heartbeat and didn’t have that eau de monster-smell on him. ‘Yup, human. Alive and kickin’’ she whispered to herself, ‘… Sorta.’

Once she was sure he would be out for a while, Trice let herself into the first room which looked was a living room of some sorts. It was pretty much like every house in Malta she had seen so far: high ceilings, light colours and carpets covering the till floors. ‘Booo-oring.’ She walked straight across the room, to the next one which seemed to have the same purpose, only with bookcases. Mildly interested, she picked randomly a title and flipped through the mouldy crumbly books. She swapped books a few times, but they were all in the same state and in Maltese.

Even more bored, she plucked a framed picture from late 1800’s amongst a dozen others and studied it. A man with short hair but a big waxy moustache standing next to a lady who sitting down in a chair and looked like she would drown into an uncomfortable dark dress.

Still carrying the frame, Trice looked around and sighed. Perhaps this house was bigger than she estimated and just maybe the tour guide was right. A week would pass before she would find these “nobles” at this rate. There was no the time neither patience for her to do so, hence she dropped the picture on an uncovered patch of the till floor. ‘Oops,’ she said flatly and waited for a few seconds.

Nothing.

Maybe it was simply that big that no one would hear a frame getting smashed. She moved to another room who seemed to look the same as the previous ones, only with a long eating table in the middle of the room.

She put her hand on the surface of the wooden table and narrowed her eyelids.

A hiss.

Trice kept her position but soundlessly moved her hand sideways to get a hold of a chair. As she observed how her shadow on the table grew larger, she grinned and swung the chair around to crush it against whatever was sneaking upon her.

The figure fell down. Since it was dark, Trice couldn’t make out after a first glance what she actually hit down.

As she approached it, the unknown clump squirmed, looking as if it were changing size or shape. As it rose up, Trice made a step back and made a quick scan again of the other objects she could use to whoop its ass.

‘Who…’

‘Huh?’ Trice uttered as the face of her opponent became clear.

‘Who are you?’

‘Noooo…’ Trice grabbed her cell phone and cast a light on the man. ‘Oooh. The guy from the picture. Well, I’d say upgrade since you’ve lost the moustache. Since guessing who you are is easy, how about you tell me what you are?’

‘Are you one of Kane’s mutts?’ he asked disdainfully. He dashed forward and grabbed Trice by the throat with one hand. ‘Then again, he isn’t much himself. More like birds of a feather flocking together…’ It looked as though he made up his mind about something and gave her a piercing look. ‘If you are with him, you wouldn’t break into this place so easily…’

‘Screw the Treaty.’ With one hand she grabbed his wrist and the other she twisted his elbow towards his body. ‘You signed it and it’s not as if you’ve been respecting it,’ she accused. From what she gathered with this single move was that he was a rather bendy lad. He didn’t even whimper and so she added a kick against his shin so that he’d finally back off.

‘What? How dare you!’ This time he lunged at her in an attempt to punch her.

She dodged him easily, pushed him flat on the ground and herself up on the table. He had practically no fighting skills, but he withstood the blows well. It was definitely not human, and his heavy aftershave smell wouldn’t change her mind about this. ‘Ah come on, we both know that you’ve been chomping sneakily here and there some humans.’

‘What do you know?’ he hissed back. ‘We’ve been forced by that bastard to sign the Treaty that forbade us to even touch a human. Even after his death we had to respect that fucking piece of paper cause of that fucking Calypso bitch!’

‘Calypso?’ Trice’s eyelids rounded at the mention. The person he referred to as “that bastard” obviously had to be Valette, however she couldn’t wrap her mind around how Calypso fit in the picture. Why would she even care about the affairs of humans? Didn’t she hate them ever since Odysseus dumped her to get back with his wife? Then again supposedly she was holed up in her cave in Gozo, crying a river over Odysseus… While it appeared she was a drunkard who knew how to party. ‘So that’s why you killed her?’

His body seemed to be changing again, but Trice was too caught up with her thoughts to pay attention to it.

What she had been assuming was wrong. If he was so angry at Calypso, why would they have killed her only now? Why wait for so long? They didn’t have to fear the Order anymore. Already early 19^th century its power had weakened, so it had to be either because they didn’t know how to kill her and found out about it now…

Either because the Order wasn’t the problem.

She snapped out of her thoughts as once again, he rose, this time not as a human… ‘Holy shi…’ but as a 10 ft long snake. ‘It’s a joke, right?’

Swiftly, she gotten off the table as the snake let its body fall down and caused the table to snap in two. ‘Damn…’ It wasn’t the first time she had seen a snake, but the first time she saw a snake with such proportions. It had a rather heavy body for its length. What was that all about? Shapeshifting gone wrong? Then again, maybe he wasn’t a proper shapeshifter, but just some jackass who gotten some shots just like in the film “Sssssss”?

The snake continued its pursuit and followed Trice who ran back along the libraries, which she tipped over one by one in the hope it’d just squash that little bastard flat.

However in spite of its thick body, it found its way fine to escape the rain of books and cases.

That was when Trice knew she had to become a little more creative. As she ran from room to room, the Vamp skimmed her memory to find ways to kill a shapeshifter or just a big-ass snake. She was cut short on her train of thought when she arrived in a hall with a staircase granting access to higher stories. It looked like the evident choice to make, but what if there was nothing useful in their rooms that would help the ass-whooping a bit? Moreover, what if the second one was upstairs? One was already a handful…

Since she hesitated for too long, the serpent caught up and slithered around her.  Quickly, she bent down and slide her hunter knife out of her right boot. The snake saw its chance and pounced on her. He disregarded Trice’s left arm that she had lift up to block his attack and simply went directly to bite her on neck and shoulder, taking the arm with him. Automatically she clenched her muscles so that he wouldn’t be able to bite through, but it didn’t matter to him as this wasn’t how he planned to finish her off. He focused on keeping his prey still, while the rest of his thick body circled around her…

Before he could tighten properly his grip, Trice rose her free right arm, stabbed the serpent in its eye with the hunter knife and twisted it. Immediately, she was freed from his toothy grip as it backed away in pain. Finally something that actually worked. With a shoulder blow, she moved his ugly snake-face out of her way and decided to take an escape route: the window.

She leaped through it, inevitably breaking the glass.

After a hard landing on the terrace, she attempted to asses her body’s condition in the dark. Her bruised left arm was strained, her body was covered in cuts and she didn’t want to even guess how the area around her neck and collar bone looked like right now. If she had to take a guess, the last one was fractured since she couldn’t lift her left arm. ‘That son of a…’ She chuffed.

From what she gathered it was a non-venomous snake… Then what was it? An anaconda? A boa? Then again, these don’t look as disproportionate as he does. Unless it fed on something not that long ago.

Whatever. She better found a way to stop it before she turned into breakfast.

On the terrace, no garden house could be found. There went her plan to find a chainsaw. She looked back to the building, hearing some movement. It was then that she noticed an outside staircase leading down to the basement. It didn’t take long for her to decide to go there.

***

This was bad. Whatever that woman who intruded into his house was, it was tough. However that wouldn’t stop him to get her. She had seen the picture, she had seen him, his true form. If he allowed her to stay longer in this place, it wouldn’t take her long to connect the dots. And then, he, he would be finished. And his sister, Perfidia would meet the same end as him.

The ruckus this fight caused hadn’t woken up her yet, however he had to finish the job quick if he wanted to bury this quietly.

The problem was this damn knife she had pierced into his eye and left there. Now that he was injured and he had already morphed twice, doing it again would be too exhausting, so he was practically obligated to leave it there until he finished the job.

He slinked towards the window and peeped his head out, to catch her going to the basement. This was excellent, she actually made it easier for him by going there.

As he crossed through the mansion to find the door that would lead to the basement, he wondered by himself when was the last time he ate a human. Obviously she wasn’t one, but from the bite he was able to take she wasn’t far from being one.

Maybe his tongue had gotten dull after gobbling nothing but animals the last 500 years or.

In the beginning he didn’t fear the Order of Saint John as hunters. His cover as a nobleman was perfect anyway and so he was able to lead this silent war against the Order. But then one day Valette found out. How? As of today he still didn’t know. How could that bastard suddenly show up at his doorstep and threaten him with Perfidia? Just how had he known about their identity and her condition?

And why did Calypso ever take his side after his death?

The two key people were gone without leaving him any answers and the more he thought about it, the more it frustrated him. The only thing that could comfort him was that he had taken revenge on Calypso in some ways and that soon he would take over this puny country and undo the Treaty. But, first he had to take care of that Kane fellow. Then the matter of his minions would be taken care of automatically. There was no way these dumb Maltese creatures would stick together after he was gone.

At last he arrived at the door leading to the basement. It was oddly quiet downstairs. For a split second he wondered whether she was plotting something, only there was nothing in there aside whatever their butler used to keep the terrace tidy. She had to be hiding, rather cowering in fear cause he’d find her anyway.

He bust through the door and skittered down the stairs. As he moved along the darkness, he tried  to sense her body heat, but it was just when he tried, that it occurred to him that he was never able to do so. So far he had gone by scent or sight.

‘… where?’

Just then, she appeared as if she were falling from the ceiling or something and landed with one foot on his snout, clenching it onto the ground. ‘Eat this,’ she grunted and bore a shovel into his body, just under his head.

Trice watched his body twitch in an expanding pool of blood till it finally stopped and so confirmed its death. ‘Finally.’

Doing this dissatisfied her intensely though she had exacted her revenge. With this she didn’t do what she intended to: find out who killed the Nemean lion and so on. Instead of finding answers, she was stumbling on more questions and mysteries. If she didn’t find someone or something to answer them soon, she’d be stuck in Malta for a long time, something she couldn’t afford. ‘I miss Cookie-chan.’ The vamp pouted.

Trice grabbed her phone and checked time (Cookie-chan being her background), she still had enough time to find the other nobleman and clean up whatever mess she left behind. She also couldn’t forget the butler at the front door.

Maybe she had overestimated herself though. Her injuries not recovering quickly enough was one thing, but this being a big ass house was another. Searching for clues could take hours.

After checking the butler was still knocked out, she decided on skimming the top floor, pitchfork in hand.

***

The last room she entered, was an odd one. At each corner of the walls there were bookcases stuffed with porcelain dolls, in the middle a princess bed surrounded with pink frilly veils.

‘Come,’ a voice hissed.

‘Since you’re asking so nicely.’ Trice marched forward and pushed the veils aside. She raised the pitchfork above the bed, but put it back down the moment she saw that frail gaunt woman tucked in bed.

‘What?’ she asked breathing heavily. ‘I’m not even worth a kill?’

Trice smirked. ‘Something liked that.’ She seized up the room once more and went on, ‘So are you the other noble one?’

‘What about Franco? What about my brother?’

‘Oh, your brother…’ How to break the news that you killed someone’s brother? ‘Uhm, napping?’ Never mind, perhaps it was better not touch upon that subject and ask her questions. ‘Say…’

‘Could you kill me too?’ the woman asked.

It's not natural: A Sunset Coven Omake - Episode 2 (Part II-a)

[A/N: This omake is longer than I've planned to (so I had to split part 2 in to subparts) and there's a lot of inaccurate and weird stuff going on. Sowwy]

‘And a Zparkling Kizz for Mademoiselle,’ said the Vamp as she presented the drink to one of the customers. It was a very busy night at YOLO and she had decided to help out at the bar. Trice wouldn’t usually do that, since Sexy bartender was more than capable enough to keep up. But right now she felt like it. She smiled at the ghoul who had ordered the drink, the prepped for the new order.

‘You’re quite skilful,’ said a dwarf.

The Vamp shot a dark glare over her shoulder to the dwarf. ‘What abouz ze rule?’ she asked with a rolling ‘r’.

A chill ran down his spine. ‘Je am very zorry, owner.’ He had forgotten about tonight’s rule, which was that if one wanted to spend this eve in YOLO, he had to speak with a French accent, or else the customer will get thrown out. French night was a monthly thing at YOLO since it was the first theme that was ever used since the bar’s existence.

It’s (still) not natural!

Another Sunset Coven Omake: E2-P2a

‘Bien,’ Trice said to herself as she had gathered all the ingredients for a Death of a Virgin. ‘C’est parti.’ It made the women swoon whenever she mixed drinks, and led them to order even more. Whenever the boss was serving, it led to the best nights for the till.

Between the Death of a Virgin and the Slippery Panties, Trice noticed some men making a ruckus. Curious what it was all about, she quickly finished the Slippery Panties, then jumped over the bar to go to them. They were all behind a single tablet watching the livre broadcast of Monster Football. ‘Not very French, mes amis,’ she said, however they were so into the game they didn’t even heard her. Trice balled her hand, raised her fist in the air about to bash em all in the head, until the game was interrupted for some news. The title displayed on screen which caught her attention: “Skin of Nemean lion found in Malta”

She snapped her fingers, which was a sign for Sexy Bartender to lower the volume of the music, and snatched the tablet from the guys to listen closely. When one – probably the owner – rose up to retrieve it she pushed her index on his forehead to make him sit back down. ‘Shut ze fuck up for une minute.’

“... say that it couldn’t have been skinned more than a week ago. No carcass or bones were found from the Lion.”

‘How is that even possible?’ The Vampire muttered under her breath. As far as was known there were no Nemean lions around anymore. It just had to be a hoax, nonetheless, she didn’t want to exclude the possibility of this being true totally. To be honest, she did put it on her ever-growing list of cool pets, while having in mind there was no such thing anymore. Well, this news could actually mean that the last Nemean lion just died. She kinda wanted to see the skin and carcass with her own eyes to make sure it was what it claimed to be. However the skin was now in the Underground in Malta (probably going to be auctioned off) and the rest of the carcass wasn’t found… Maybe… She pressed her lips together and attempted to control the growing excitement that made her toes curl.

‘Hey, give my tablet back!’ a werewolf yelled and lunged at her.

Trice rose the tablet and had hit it flat on the werewolf’s face. The werewolf crashed against his comrades. ‘I said shut ze fuck up. And if you talk, watch your accent français at least. P’tit con, va.’ She put the tablet back on the table and spat, ‘Merci for ze tablet.’ While a fight broke out between the bouncer and the Monster-football watching creatures, the Vamp quietly headed to the bar. Instead of helping out Sexy bartender, she took a seat on a stool and sunk into deep thought.

***

The human bar was as successful as the bar in the underground though it didn't work with themes. It was probably because it was the bar of the town’s saviour and everyone wanted to get a glimpse of her. However even the ones who were employed by Trice hardly saw her. That was why when she showed up, the ones present would call up everyone from the village to hurry to the bar. Subsequently, these were the best nights for the till.

For the vamp it wasn't, cause that meant that the head of the village (not the mayor, but a former one, more loved, popular and having regard than the current one) would try to match-make her. She couldn't throw him out, since he had pulled the strings so she'd get the land in reward after having "saved" the village from the cockatrice. So Trice was pretty much doomed to endure him whenever she came to the human world, not wanting to have her land taken away from her (forcing her to take it back illegally).

'And he's also a fine man from the village,' he said as he shoved another picture over the table.

It was really just him that talked to her and tried to get her hitched though. The other villagers didn’t dare to approach her and looked at her as if she were a lion in a cage.

Trice glanced politely at the three pictures he had lined up. He had called them all fine men, to her they just looked about the same: dark costume, bleached teeth and bad haircut attempted to hide their predisposition to balding. 'Hmh.'

'He went to Oxford and works now as an architect in a renown London-based firm.' Although the woman smiled, he had a hunch he failed to tickle her interest. It was time to pull out his best card. He slid his hand in his coat, took out his wallet and flipped it open. 'This,' he said dramatically as he fished out a picture and pushed it into her hands, 'is my grandson. He's probably younger than you are by a few years...'

Try 200 years, she thought.

'But he's shaping up to be a good man. He just finished Med school at Cambridge and will train for surgeon.'

Since he insisted so much, she studied the picture more closely than the others and smiled. 'He looks a lot like you.'

'Really? You think so too? My wife, actually everyone, says he takes after my son in law. But I know better. Spitting image of me just before I went to the army!'

She pitched up her head. 'Army?'

'Yes. I was. I've enrolled when I was 16. The war does something to you. Leaves scars on your flesh but also on the inside. My appearance changed drastically, cause of the war... Well, it changes you, the war. It changes you...

She held up the picture and gazed at it, without really focusing on it and mumbled, ‘Yeah.'

'Anyway. Will you meet him? He's the best fish in the sea. If you're scared that his parents will be miffed, don’t worry, I'm backing you up!'

Trice smiled at the frail old man. Now if she said she were a vampire he'd crap in his pants and try to beat her with a cane. Although she’d come unscathed from this, he wouldn’t.

Pretending to be a human was exhausting around people, but the old man wasn’t that bad. Actually, he could be plenty of fun at times. 'I'll think about it,' she lied and gotten up. ‘I’m going to get some fresh air. We'll talk again next time.'

'Don't wait too long. Girls will get a hold on him soon!'

Finally relieved from the matchmaking session, she went out and took her bike out of the garage to go to Harewood Forest so that her cockatrice could have a walk. She used her magical bottle to transport her pet safely outside and have it stretch its legs and wings at least once every two weeks. It wasn’t a lot and the cockatrice’s freedom was restricted by a magical leash, but at least it didn’t go bonkers from staying its cage for too long.

As the cockatrice horsed around, Trice looked up and sighed. ‘A Nemean lion, huh?’

***

Sexy bartender put a fresh glass of beer in front of the vampire and sighed. While the rest of the staff was prepping to open the boutique, Trice was just staring at the nightpaper, from which she hadn’t gone past page sport’s page she usually never cared about.

The Orc came in , put his spiked bat on the floor and rested it again the bar, then slapped the owner on the back of the head. ‘You plug-ugly fuck-face still here?’

Every waiter stopped doing whatever they were doing, only Sexy Bartender kept on cleaning calmly a glass, figuring what would follow soon.

The Vamp gotten up and glowered at the Orc. ‘What?’

‘Yeh heard me…’

Before he could finish his sentence, she caught him by the nape of his neck and crushed his head into the bar, making the wood snap in two. Sexy Bartender made a swift step back so to not get an uppercut from the wood that flew up in the air.

The vampire dusted her hand off on her jeans. ‘Dammit. My hand will smell for a week now,’ She complained then looked around for her paper. The workers were relieved that their boss treated this matter as unluckily stepping into poo and went back to work again.

Sexy bartender put the glass he carefully dried away and slapped the towel over his shoulder and said, while crossing his arms, ‘I usually don’t pry…’

‘Good, keep it up,’ she snapped.

‘But you know,’ he kept on, unaffected by her deadly glare, ‘we can perfectly take care of the bar and your cockatrice.’

‘Why are you even bringing this up? Why would I hand over my Cookie-chan to…’ The Orc pulled his head out of the floor and rose. He turned towards the Vamp who just squinted at the sight of his bloodied face. ‘That blood or goo?’

‘W’all saw yeh watchin’ that episode on teh lion on Rediscov’ chann’l on y'r dog and bone yest’day,’ the Orc grunted.

‘And the Monster encyclopedia has disappeared from your library. I bet you’re using it as a pillow at night,’ added the Bartender.

‘Can't be arsed if you want to leave. But ’f thou want to go, go. Not hard to care fo’ the mongrel.’

Not only were they breaking the rule of prying into her affairs, but Sexy bartender had also seen her library? She balled her hand into a fist, ready to kick their asses, but hearing the others agree made her freeze. Did she have to teach everyone a lesson now? ‘That’s none of your concern. Moreover, my baby hates men,’ she said and then looked at the Orc, ‘Especially a proper stink like you.’

The bartender smirked and leaned over to whisper into Trice’s ear, ‘Cookie just hates whoever you learned her to hate though. I saw you sneaking a drawing of that Elf-like guy into Cookie’s cage when it was born. You totally calculated this.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to meddle,’ she growled. In a reply, Sexy bartender retreated and just shrugged it off. ‘You’re all a pain in the arse.’

***

But she still went in the end. It had taken some time to convince her go out and play on her own. Ever since they knew her, they’d never saw her either travelling in the Underground or go further than the usual walk with Cookie-chan in the human world. She’d always stay cooped up inside the bar, and her room.

And when Trice finally decided to go, since curiosity was eating her and she was a sucker for weird pets, she cursed herself. Travelling was so uncomfortable when you had to depend on the mortal means. If she had to think of it, aside her trip to retrieve her Scandinavian pet about 5-6 months ago, she hadn't used the underground to travel for around 50 years and only had been using the good ol’ human roads ever since.

Moreover now she was forced to take the boat, since there were no commercial flights or other means of transportation that would do the distance at night. Taking a large ship transporting goods insured her that it'd take some time for them to load and unload, sometimes needing more than a day to do so. There would be enough time to slip out. (Plus breaking in and hide in the ship was child’s play for her. )

Upon her arrival in the grand Harbor in Malta, the sun was setting and a couple of minutes later she could get up and sneak out. Once on land, she whipped up her phone and consulted her position thanks to the gps.

She had researched a lot before her actual departure (as in Googled shitloads). The lion’s skin had been found in Rabat, so she would start from there. Of course Trice still had to get there and it was about 7 and a half miles from her current location. It would take her less than two hours if she’d take her time.

The advantage of this country was that it was so small that everything was at walking distance for her. The problem would be to look for a place to stay, that was the one thing she couldn’t figure out. Taking refuge in the Underground wasn’t an option for her and was apparently impossible as Malta wasn’t connected to it anyway.

It wasn’t so surprising since from the little information she had gathered Malta wasn’t really monster-food-friendly due to its lack in cattle and strong regulations on human-feeding. The concentration of 365 churches and chapels in such a little place and it having been the home of the Order of St John for a long time only contributed to Malta being the least favourite European travel destination of the Lore.

It was so bad that she couldn’t even find a single recommendation for a safe and good human motel to stay at.

Trice strode away from Paola, going through unlit streets of Malta. Since cities and villages were flowing into another and everything looked pretty much the same, it was hard to tell where she was.

When she ended up on a larger road, with more traffic, she decided to follow it up though her gps told her to go the exact opposite way. She arrived at a large fountain that was place across the gates of the capital of Malta, La Valetta. Not so far she spotted the bus terminal.

Since she hadn’t ran into an atm so far, Trice decided to get into the capital to make a withdrawal of a couple of Euro notes (damn the British and their pounds).

Though shops were already closed, La Valetta showed more life than Paola, as every capital city should. Granted, people mainly left for to take a bus or hung around a bar or had dinner at a restaurant, but still, it was better than the “ghost” villages she had been walking through.

The atmosphere was very relaxed though. Not exactly what you expected from a capital city.

At first Trice strolled on her ease, looking casually around for an atm, but then quickened her pace as she suspected that someone or something was tailing her.

Just to be make sure it was the case, she left the main street, to disappear into a dark alley. Since the road was deserted, she was able to ascertain that not only she was being followed her, but also that whatever was after her wasn’t human. There were no footsteps sounds detected... Only a slithering one. And the stench it caused… Far from smelling like food.

Trice stopped and turned around. Nothing to be seen. ‘Hmm…’

Going forth, she stumbled upon an atm. Trice grabbed her wallet, put her bag on the ground and inserted her credit card into the machine. She wouldn't have thought that one day she'd have a bank account and credit card at some human's establishment. But now it had become possible to open an account online and do all paperwork at home… Times sure changed fast and everything became easier thanks to those lazy humans. No need to coerce a human or shifter to go to a bank for you. All you needed was a false ID and that was it (well for a credit card you had to make a bit more of efforts, but still easy as pie).

Once she selected the button for English, she swiftly turned sideways and kicked into the fray mass that had sneaked up behind her. To her surprise her leg just passed through the figure. She looked up, and saw a toothless smile and hollow eyes looking down to her. 'What the...'

As she tried to pull leg out of the muddy monster, Trice grabbed her knife hidden under her jacket and with one swift swipe, cut horizontally from the neck to the underarm of the monster. While the blade clearly went through, it didn't do any damage to the creature.

Leg finally free, she kicked her bag up to the left and jumped after it. The monster was slow in its movements, which gave her time to dig out one of the two bottles of vodka she had brought with her. She threw one above the monster's head, pulled out a gun with which she aimed and blast it so the alcohol would pour all over the monster. Then, she grabbed a lighter, lit it and threw in on the monster's head. Since the alcohol hadn't been absorbed by it, it caught fire easily.

It wasn't much of an impressive fire, but it was effective enough to make the creature flee through a tiny crack between two houses.

'What the hell was that?' the vamp asked out loud, cocking a brow. It didn't resemble any creature she had seen so far. Trice scratched the back of her head then turned around as she heard the atm beep. Her request was denied due to a time out and it had ejected her card. She sighed and pushed the card in again, selected her language and as she was about to tap her pin code, she frowned. 'Really...' she rapidly grabbed her knife again, turned round and threw it right into the throat of the ghoul that had crept up to her. 'Don't peak, asshole,' she snapped to the ghoul which staggered back.

Trice punched her pin code in and chose to withdraw €200 to start with. As the machine processed her request, she turned round again, got a hold of the dagger still stuck in the ghoul's throat and slashed it through. She kicked the headless ghoul away from her and gotten her bills and card, which she put carefully away in her wallet. 'Good... Now...'

She hardly made two steps and another ghoul appeared. 'What's up with tonight?' she wondered as she twirled the silver knife around her fingers.

While she gotten rid of that ghoul several others appeared along with some more of those slimy things. It was hard to beat her way through the odd gang, but Trice somehow managed to do so and reach the main road again. As she walked on the main road, mingling with humans, she wondered why she had been attacked. There was no apparent reason… She didn’t feed herself on a human, heck she didn’t even interfered the slightest with human life.

As her train of thoughts went on the matter, her pace slowed down. They couldn’t have known she was coming, she thought as she touched her ribs.

Trice came to a full stop and glanced at her watch. Instead of wasting her time fighting them, she should just find the lair of these cunts and burn it down. Well, first ask questions, then burn it.

Pumped up, she decided to run back into the dark alleys and get caught to see what would happen… Couldn’t hurt, well, couldn’t die from it.

***

Twenty hours later, the Vampire woken up in a room with “More than a Feeling” blasting through a big fancy Bose speaker that was placed just near to her head. Startled, by the sound, she swatted it away from her face to the wall.

When she overcame the fright the music had given her, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Normally after you’ve been abducted by a bunch of monsters you’d at least expect being thrown into a dark dungeon and be in shackles or whatever. Here the definition of being kidnapped, was being held into a nice room with a view on the sea and tortured by Boston’s music.

Even when they brought to her, they didn’t torture her or anything. Just dropped her in and that was all. Only thing that lacked was wishing her a good night or something. ‘Weird folks,’ she muttered.

‘Who?’ a voice asked.

The vampire looked up and came face to face with a blue-gray faced old woman. With the tip of her yellow 10 feet long nails she grazed the Vampire’s neck and asked again, ‘who?’

The first reaction the vampire had was to reply, but the moment she opened her mouth, she gagged. The crone’s breath was worse than a skunk ape’s diarrhoea and a zombie’s burning rotten flesh together. She jumped on her feet and backed away.

While she coughed like mad as she could have sworn that foul smell was stuck in her own throat, the old lady made a few steps forward as she thought out loud, ‘i've seen thy face 'ere, haven't i? don't thou remember me?’

As she went back and clasped her hand over her mouth, the vampire replied, ‘If I ever met you before, I don’t think I would’ve ever forgotten the smell…’

‘i'm not some corky daw. i'm sure…’ the crone muttered.

The smell had been so distracting, that it didn’t dawn on her earlier that the old bag was obviously not some Maltese monster. It was English. ‘Who…’

‘agnes is mine name. may i hast the pleasure of knowing yours, ladybird?’

Agnes…  She scanned the hag, from her wrinkled face and damaged helix-part of her ears to her hunched back, down to the tanned human skin that was tied around her waist. Children skin? The vampire wondered from the size of it. A boogeyman? Agnes was a familiar name, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. ‘I’m… Trice.’

‘Trice?’

Agnes scuffled away from the vampire and whispered to herself. It was so silent and incomprehensible that the vampire didn’t catch any of it. While old bat was busy, Trice scanned the room. Her belongings were still the desk she put it on after having arrived here. She could just grab it and go. Staying would be a waste of time if she had to get an explanation from that senile hag.

‘Mummy!’ A black-greenish haired man opened the door and tottered in to embrace the crone.

‘Izzy! thou've come!’

Looking at these two caught in their embrace, Trice rolled her eyes. ‘Really a waste of time.’ She grabbed her bag, slapped it on her back and strode out hoping she’d find another more helpful monster that could explain her what the actual fuck was going on.

‘Izzy! Izzy!’

‘Who is she?’ he asked Agnes.

‘Trice.’

‘Trice?’ He cut the vampire in her pace and grabbed her by the jaw to tur her face towards him. ‘What’s your deal here in Malta?’

Instead of replying, she asked on her turn, ‘What’s yours? Were those your minions? Why did you have them bring me here? As far as I know, there’s no border control in Europe.’

His hand still gripping her jaw, he pulled her closer. ‘You must not have heard me correctly, I said…’

Annoyed with his attitude, she shoved his dirty paws off her and struck him up under his nose with the heel of her palm. While the elf bent in two from the pain, she glanced at the granny and the back to Izzy. ‘Why would you even care about tourist like me? Are you even locals?’

Izzy punched into the wooden floor and gotten up. Through his heavy nosebleed he shouted, ‘It’s my fucking business who comes and goes! Especially after what they’ve done to my friends!’ and lunged at Trice.

***

Two minutes later, it was Izzy’s turn to open his eyes, lying flat on the ground and drenched in water. ‘What… happened?’ he asked as he saw Trice’s  face hovering over him.

‘You’ve gotten overly excited, so I calmed you a bit,’ the vampire explained nicely when all she meant to say was “I punched you cause you pissed me off”. ‘You were telling me about your friends and all getting into some kind of trouble.’

‘I was?’ he asked, confused as he sat up.

‘Yeah. What’s happening here that puts the whole island on the edge, Izzy?’ she questioned.

‘My name isn’t Izzy. It’s Kane. Just my mom calling me like that,’ he corrected and put his head – now suffering of a splitting ache – into both hands.

Just when she thought it became interesting, that mama-boy was spouting some nonsense again. Trice thought she could manipulate that dumb bastard into fessing up, but she’d need some help with that. From inside her bag, she grabbed her second bottle of vodka. Time to sacrifice this old friend. ‘Okay, Kane then… Want a drink mate?’

‘Yea, aw’right,’ he answered. Trice smiled, opened the bottle and handed it to the elf who guzzled it all down at once. After a burp, his cheeks turned red and he said, ‘Around two months ago we started noticing that there were more humans dying…’

‘So?’

‘So?’

‘Yes, “so?”. More humans dying, big deal. There plenty of ‘em dying every day.’

‘It’s not normal! Since Jean Parisot de Valette’s appointment as Grand Master in this country, there hasn’t been one death of a human caused by a monster that breached the Treaty!’

Trice narrowed her eyelids, it was something she had read about before coming here. The Order of St John was historically known as political organization made of a bunch of rich ass-kicking Hospitallers who had as mission to defend the Holy Land; but for the lore, they were what would be now called “Hunters”. However, unlike the Scooby Gang she met in America, they were pretty good at what they did and hence somewhat feared back in the Middle Ages.

When they settled in Malta, they had been at war with not only the Ottomans, but also the local creatures that were led by the Maltese Nobles. However de Valetta succeeded somehow to bring the nobles to their knees and sign a Treaty (which had something more of a decree) regulating the lives between the Knights, Monsters and Humans on this island. Although the Order had become an empty shell when it came to its Hunter activities, the Treaty was still upheld on the island and humans were only killed for food according the law.

She had tried to read the very few transcripts available of the original Treaty, but they came across as only snippets and as a piece of rubbish. How it was still being applied was a mystery to her.

‘Moreover… Whatever killed those humans killed also my friends! Me and Mama are the only one lefts along with some ghouls, Kaw kaws and Il-Belliegħa’s.’

Kaw kaws? Il-Belliegħa’s? So was that the name of the thing that attacked in the capital? ‘Was there a Nemean lion killed as well?’ she asked, as if it were nothing.

‘Yes! How did you know?’

‘Just heard it on the news,’ she said, shrugging. ‘They found his skin or something.’

‘Yeah. We even didn’t have the time to retrieve Bob’s remains before the Italians put their hands on it. We couldn’t say anything about it, because Calypso always said that Bob was not supposed to in Malta at all,’ he said while sobbing.

‘Bob? Like seriously, most awesome pet ever… and you name him Bob? Really?’ Trice uttered in amazement. Then her brain finally caught onto an important element of his sentence. ‘Calypso? Wait, Calyspo as in the daughter of Atlas? The one who tried to “stockholm syndrome” Odysseus? She’s still here?’

When Kane paused for a moment to stare at her, eyes brimming in tears, Trice knew was dead-on, it was her. Before she could ask if she was in Gozo like the rumours went, he broke into sobs and cried, ‘… She’s dead.’

Now that was a lot of information to take in. Trice concentrated as to stifle his sobbing by the sounds the wheels spinning in her brain’s. There was something that likes eating humans, but also other creatures. Somehow it left out the ghouls out and whatever those other monsters are… But it was able to consume a sea nymph? What the actual fuck was happening here?

‘So that’s why you and your little troop has been like… Trying to kill whoever enters the country,’ she guessed and shook her head. ‘That’s stupid. Have you even thought of investigating, before going on a random monster-busting spree?’ Before Kane could spout back that he did, she went on, ‘Quit whining already. Seems like there’s a lot of work to do.’